“I have a great notion of being the master of my own happiness, and not suffering it to be contingent on the manners and conduct of other people.”

Asserting personal responsibility for one's own serenity · Letter, 1885

• Happiness
• Independence
• Self Control

“I grow old naturally, comfortably, easily, and with assent and consent. It is the strugglers, the rebels, the miserables who can do nothing generously, that spoil themselves.”

Embracing age with equanimity rather than resistance · Letter to A. M. Worthington, 1895

• Acceptance
• Age
• Contentment